March 28, 2024

Power Companies Face Supply Crisis

Energy

Morning Coffee is a robust blend of links to news around the internet concerning the Naval Air Station Patuxent River Morning Coffee logoeconomic community. The opinions expressed here do not reflect opinions of the Leader’s owners or staff.

US power companies face a supply-chain crisis this summer, reports Reuters, threatening to hamper their ability to keep the lights on heading into the heat of summer and peak hurricane season. Consumer power use is expected to hit all-time highs this summer, which could strain electric grids at a time when federal agencies are warning the weather could pose reliability issues. Extreme weather events such as storms, wildfires, and drought are becoming more common in the United States.

Clogged warehouses and rail delays herald new supply chain woes, reports gCaptain. Two years in and attention has waned, but disrupted global supply chains continue. On the ground, the US’s busiest port complex in Southern California — responsible for 42% of all containerized trade with Asia — is still battling bottlenecks across the board. Plus, an influx of cargo as retailers stock up on back-to-school and holiday goods is coinciding with the easing of the lockdowns in China.

The US Navy has slowed its F-35 orders amid rising readiness grades of its fighter fleet, reports Defense News. The service will order fewer F-35C jets in FY23 than Lockheed could produce under a pandemic catch-up plan and hopes to spend the savings on other priorities. Equally important is the Navy leadership’s belief that the current fighter inventory is the healthiest it’s been in two decades, meaning the service’s self-declared fighter shortfall can be safely left to linger past 2030, officials told Defense News.

Advocates are calling on veterans to serve as poll workers for upcoming elections, reports Military Times. Organizers behind the new VetTheVote initiative want to get more veterans involved in American elections — not politics — just the elections.

Charges of forgery have been added against Roy McGrath, specifically regarding a memorandum he said his boss, Gov. Lawrence Hogan, had approved, reports Maryland Matters. McGrath’s 11-week tenure as Hogan’s chief of staff ended abruptly in August 2020, following media reports that he received a $233,647 severance when he left the Maryland Environmental Service to work for the governor. McGrath already faces charges in state and federal court. McGrath had claimed that Hogan signed off on his severance payment before he became chief of staff, which the governor denied.

 

 

Louisiana-based company Metal Shark announced Tuesday that the US would send six of its maritime combat vessels to Ukraine as part of the $450 million aid the White House announced last week. The White House said it would send 18 patrol boats to Ukraine as part of the latest assistance package but would not identify the vessels beyond giving their size and general description, reports USNI.

Former defense secretary James Mattis, known in the Marine Corps as a Warrior monk, got married. The shock is palpable in the Military Times account of the legend of always, always, always a Marine, never married. Yet he and physicist Christina Lomasney have exchanged marriage vows, first married in a riverside ceremony, followed by a Las Vegas ceremony officiated by an Elvis impersonator.

NASA and Rocket Lab launch an orbiter to help pave way for astronauts’ return to the moon, reports UPI. NASA’s CAPSTONE spacecraft lifted off into space Tuesday morning on a mission to orbit the moon, moving scientists closer to returning astronauts. The 55-pound cube satellite will be guided into an elongated orbit with the moon, coming as close as 1,000 miles to its north pole, and remain for six months to study dynamics.

The Navy christened an expeditionary sea base named after John L. Canley, a recently deceased Marine Medal of Honor recipient, reports Navy Times. Canley, who died in May from cancer, received the Navy Cross in 1968 for his actions in Hue City, Vietnam, where he and other Marines from Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, warded off multiple attacks while relieving another Marine company. The 784-foot ship is the sixth expeditionary mobile base built for Military Sealift Command, and the fourth expeditionary mobile base of the Puller class.

DoD looks to protect troops and civilian employees from prosecution over new abortion laws, reports Military Times. The Supreme Court’s decision to remove federal protection of abortion access will affect troops and their families in myriad ways. One Pentagon intention, according to a memo released Tuesday, is to work with the Justice Department to make sure DoD health care staff aren’t prosecuted for helping troops obtain abortions.

Abortions are rarely performed by military clinics, reports Military Times. Military treatment facilities have completed fewer than 100 abortions in the past five calendar years, all of which were permitted by federal law under strict circumstances, according to the DoD data included in a report to Congress in May.

Family members of Alexander Drueke, one of two US military veterans captured while fighting in eastern Ukraine earlier this month who is being held by Russian-backed separatists, contacted his family via phone on Saturday, directly addressing his mother, Bunny Drueke, in the first alleged contact since videos and pictures of the two surfaced on Russian media over a week ago, reports Military.com.

A Navy officer was sentenced to life for murdering his wife in Belgium, reports Navy Times. Years after his wife’s fatal fall from a Belgian apartment balcony, a junior Navy officer has been sentenced to life in prison for murdering her. A US military jury in Mons, Belgium, this spring found Lt. Craig R. Becker guilty of premeditated murder, assault consummated by a battery, and conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman in connection to the death of Johanna Hove-Becker, 32, who plunged to her death from the seventh floor of their apartment there October 8, 2015, according to recently published Navy trial result records.

Ernst & Young is hit with a $100 million fine over cheating on ethics tests, reports The Washington Post. Hundreds of auditors at accounting giant Ernst & Young cheated on ethics tests they were required to take to get or maintain their professional licenses, and the company withheld evidence of the misconduct from federal authorities investigating the matter, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Contracts:

Consolidated Analysis Center International (CACI) Inc., Chantilly, Virginia, is awarded a $27,338,600 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract. This contract provides engineering, technical and program management support services and associated supplies to support the development, production and sustainment of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance mission systems. Work will be performed in Austin, Texas (90%); and Patuxent River, Maryland (10%), and is expected to be completed in June 2023. Fiscal 2022 aircraft procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $100,000 will be obligated at the time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This contract was not competitively procured pursuant to 10 US Code 2304(c)(1). The Naval Air Warfare Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity (N0042122C0025).

Reliance Test and Technology LLC, Crestview, Florida, is awarded an $80,831,607 cost-plus-fixed-fee, cost modification (P00019) to a previously awarded contract (N0042120C0033). This modification exercises an option to provide research, development, test, evaluation, engineering, fleet and management support services required to perform aircraft engineering and developmental flight test, as well as fleet training events for Navy and Marine Corps air vehicle systems and trainers in support of the Atlantic Ranges and Targets Department. Work will be performed in Patuxent River, Maryland (99%); and various locations within the continental US (1%) and is expected to be completed in June 2023. Fiscal 2022 research, development, test, and evaluation (Navy) funds in the amount of $8,362,250; fiscal 2022 operation and maintenance (Navy) in the amount of $2,176,482; fiscal 2022 research, development, test, and evaluation (Department of Defense) funds in the amount of $507,554; and fiscal 2022 working capital (Navy) funds in the amount of $155,000 will be obligated at time of award, $2,176,482 of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The Naval Air Warfare Command, Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.

Spider Strategies Inc., Arlington, Virginia, was awarded a $16,426,741 firm-fixed-price contract for strategic management system support services. Bids were solicited via the internet with one received. Work locations and funding will be determined with each order, with an estimated completion date of July 2, 2024. US Army Contracting Command, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, is the contracting activity (W91CRB-22-D-0010). 

Bechtel National Incorporation, Reston, Virginia, is awarded a $71,121,288 modification (P00237) to contract W52P1J-09-C-0012 to extend the period of performance by five months at the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant. Work will be performed in Pueblo, Colorado, with an estimated completion date of Sept. 30, 2023. Fiscal 2022 research, development, test, and evaluation, Army funds in the amount of $0 were obligated at the time of the award. US Army Contracting Command, Rock Island, Illinois, is the contracting activity. 

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